Volunteering in a political campaign is an invaluable experience. It can be an exciting, intense, short term sense of group solidarity and a fun way to meet others who share your passion for an issue / candidate, while learning how voting blocs, even minority ones, can and do affect election outcomes.

Candidate recruitment for the state legislature is beginning now for the November elections. Getting MFOA-endorsed candidates elected is one of the most important things you can do to advance animal protection.

Recruit Animal-Friendly State House and Senate Candidates

• Use MFOA voting bloc structure and resources. MFOA has the state divided into 14 population districts, each with a District Coordinator (DC) who has a master list of all the MFOA members and supporters in that district. Contact the DC in your area and see if there may be someone who might be a potential state legislative candidate.

• Organize politically at the grassroots level. Work with your DC to form a group of animal protection activists in your area to work together to support an animal-friendly candidate.

• Attend your party’s monthly meetings (ex: Brunswick Republican Town Committee meeting) and get a copy of the local party rules on electing candidates; see if there is someone in that group we would want to encourage to run for the state legislature.

• Ask people about civic or business leaders and community activists who may be a good candidate to be a state legislator, and then call, email, or write them to see how they feel about some animal-protection issues. A potential candidate should realize a political campaign requires a seven-day-a-week commitment for many months before the election. All the more reason why volunteering a few hours a week in the fall is important in helping candidates.

• Do opposition research on incumbent votes, and does he or she have any controversial positions, or has the legislator become lazy and not represented the district with any distinction, or does a new candidate lack the experience that would make them a good legislator, or have they voted against animal protection.

Here are the many ways in which you can help elect an animal-friendly legislator:

The following volunteer positions could be beneficial in getting MFOA-endorsed candidates elected. Any amount of time you can volunteer will be appreciated by the candidate.

• Campaign Manager (often the candidate)
• Treasurer
• Director of Field Operations/Database Coordination
• Volunteer Coordinator
• Media and Event Scheduler
• Absentee Ballot Coordinator
(more vote absentee than ever before)
• Webmaster
• Write letters to the editor in local newspapers
• Event Planner
• Principal Fundraiser (if not a clean election candidate)
• Voter registration list/looking up phone numbers
• Neighborhood canvassing, door-knocking,registering new voters, distributing campaign materials at malls, etc.
• Call friends, neighbors or business associates and ask them to vote for our candidate
• Put up road signs
• Phone-banking to identify supporters and promote candidate
• Help getting out the vote on Election Day